On August 1, Dr. Ann Cudd took over as the new dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, which means that Virginia Sapiro has passed the torch after eight years leading the College. As she begins her well-earned sabbatical, Gina bequeaths a CAS that is very different from how she found it.
Since becoming the college’s first female dean in 2007, Sapiro has hired 184 faculty members (a third of CAS’s faculty), added 17 new undergraduate majors, and led the development of the Pardee School of Global Studies, the BU Centers for the Study of Asia and Europe, respectively, and the Middle East and North African Studies Program. She reorganized the Office of Student Academic Life to make the college more student-focused, and created the CAS First Year Experience to help freshmen transition to life at BU—for credit.
She has done far more than we have room to list here. Suffice to say it is working: freshman applications have risen 38 percent, and donations to the college have doubled. There are also results that can’t be measured: a raised bar for the kind of faculty who teach at CAS, an easier transition for new freshmen making BU their home, the countless projects and lessons that have arisen from new centers and programs.
There is also gratitude. Recognizing Sapiro’s efforts for beyond-the-classroom learning, the CAS advisory board has pledged $170,000 to an endowment for class trips and guest speakers, renamed the Virginia Sapiro Academic Enhancement Fund in her honor. The Sapiro Fund supported 60 educational events across 17 academic disciplines last year, but it’s only one part of Sapiro’s legacy.
Sapiro has said that being dean of CAS—getting to work with such a huge range of academic disciplines—has been for her an ongoing liberal arts education. Fittingly, prior to her “graduation” from the deanship this spring, the faculty awarded Sapiro a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Fine Arts, Master of Science, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Philosophy, all in “decanal leadership studies,” with honors in the humanities, natural sciences, mathematics and computer science, and the social sciences. After eight years of long, intense days, sometimes not stopping for the weekend, she’s certainly earned it.
While Virginia Sapiro is planning on getting a little relaxing done this year, we know she won’t be idle. There’s a research project in the works, on how the U.S.’s unique system of higher education developed. She has other projects in mind, too, and she of course has her courses to prepare, for when she returns to CAS as a political science professor in 2016.
Best of luck, Gina, and thank you for all you’ve done!